CASE STUDIES
The case studies below highlight ongoing or very recent examples of PPPs involving AquaFed’s members.
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The documents are brief and meant to give a snapshot of the variety and scale of projects. Where possible, there is a short explanation of how the project supports one or more of the five accelerators under the UN SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework and where possible. specific information about how the project is supporting gender equality and opportunities for young people.
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WASTEWATER REUSE
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Wastewater treatment and reuse plant – As Samra, Jordan
A wastewater treatment and reuse plant which is a solution to water scarcity on Jordan. The plant provides reused water to more than 4,000 farms and is also almost totally energy self-sufficient.
This is one of the first projects in the Middle East region to be built under a build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis and one of the first project to be financed via a blended financial package.
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Wastewater treatment and reuse plant – Ballarat (Victoria), Australia
The positive impacts of this PPP include full treated water compliance and treatment cost optimization. The facility produces pelletized biosolids for beneficial land-based reuse and recycled water for various uses, including distribution into the main lake for recreational activities in Ballarat.
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Wastewater collection and energy creation – Rialto, USA
A long-running partnership to supply wastewater collection and treatment for an area of 105,000 people. More recently, operation and maintenance (O&M) of the water distribution system and customer service billing & collections department were added to the agreement.
Now, the city of Rialto, in partnership with the private operator, is designing and installing a microgrid powered through a unique combination of biogas cogeneration, solar power and backup battery storage to supply electricity for its wastewater treatment plant (one of the first of its kind in California).
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WASTEWATER
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Wastewater concession – Hamamatsu City, Japan
This was the first wastewater concession in Japan. The treatment plant handles wastewater from nearly 500,000 of the city’s inhabitants. The many impacts so far include full water water quality compliance, various cost reduction efforts, and social activities with local communities.
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Wastewater treatment for a large city – Gabal El-Asfar, Cairo, Egypt
The contract includes optimization works to enable the plant to increase its energy self-sufficiency up to 70% with the production of electricity from the biogas generated by the treatment of sludge. The treatment plant serves around 5 million people.
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Wastewater treatment biosolids production and Combined Heat and Power – Milwaukee, USA
One of the largest public-private wastewater partnerships in North America, serving 1.1 million people. The project features a ‘Deep Tunnel’ to handle 521 million gallons of stormwater and wastewater until the plants can treat it.
The project also involves converting sludge into fertilizer for lawns and gold courses and capturing methane gas to power the plants.
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Wastewater treatment and reuse – Nassau County, USA
A PPP involving around 3,000 miles of network and serving an area of 1.3million people. These coastline areas were crippled by lethal levels of nitrogen that fuelled massive algae blooms, choked the bays of oxygen and killed fish, shellfish and plant life. However, since the partnership started, the areas are now in good environmental health again.
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WATER TREATMENT AND SUPPLY
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This 22-year contract saw the population in the served area almost tripled during the contract. The workforce remained fairly stable, and the 700+ staff were trained according to a precise and function-based skills development program, which enabled this stable workforce to serve four times more people than at the beginning.
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One of the key features of this partnership was innovation - giving users the ability to make payments by phone thanks to agreements signed with banks and cell phones operators.
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Urban water supply – Nagpur, India
The first PPP project for 24/7 water supply for an entire Indian city. Halfway through the contract, population served has increased by 33% and the number of connections doubled. The increase in revenues has ensured cost recovery and 30% CAPEX potential.
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The operator put in place a local team to address and resolve users’ queries about the project. This in turn led to people opting for connection and accepting services provided through a private operator. Initiatives such as a 24x7 customer call centre have been added to make the service better.
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Water Supply – Monteria, Colombia
The population in the served area almost tripled during the contract and the coverage rate increased from 58% in 2000 to 100% in 2022, thanks to 80,000 new social connections and new almost 600 kilometers extended. The workforce remained fairly stable, and the 370 staff were trained according to a precise and function-based skills development program, which enabled this stable workforce to serve four times more people than at the beginning.
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Urban water supply – Iloilo, Philippines
The district of Jaro in Iloilo City is experiencing many positive impacts after the district authority finally gave the go-ahead to a water supply franchise agreement. Now all 30,000 people are connected to a supply of safe drinking water and local businesses have been able to develop faster.
Although the project is not that innovative, it shows what can be achieved when there is political will to agree action that can improve people's lives.
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RURAL WATER SUPPLY
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Water access in rural areas – Benin
A project to provide water in rural areas. The company will rehabilitate, extend and densify 400 existing systems and manage them for 10 years. A local subsidiary was created with 500 new jobs.
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Smart Water Villages – Ivory Coast
The Ivorian government signed a contract with the private operator for the supply and commissioning of 40 UCDs (Decentralized Compacts Units) to ensure the supply of drinking water in 32 towns that had a water deficit, representing a capacity of 92,000 m3 per day.
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UCDs are patented prefabricated and standardized metal water treatment plants. They democratize the surface water (river, dams, lake) treatment and enable large drinking water production capacities to be implemented (up to 100m3/h vs. 10m3/h maximum).
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O&M CONCESSIONS
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O and M Concession – Miyagi, Japan
The Miyagi concession is the first of its kind in Japan, as it includes drinking water production, industrial water production, and sewage treatment. It is the first-ever concession project in Japan that includes drinking water production.
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This partnership involves a global operator working with 9 local companies to provide services to Miyagi Prefecture’s 2 drinking water projects covering 25 municipalities (about 1.8 million inhabitants), 4 wastewater projects covering 21 municipalities and 3 industrial water projects covering 70 companies.
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